Tuesday, October 1, 2013
When the Walls Come Tumbling Down
Descartes realizes that some of the beliefs he thought were true turned out to be false. In the pursuit of knowledge he seeks to tear down his previous beliefs and build them up again upon a firm foundation. In other words, he is engaged in a foundational project, searching for a class of beliefs that themselves are not in need of justification in order to justify his other beliefs. But is this quest a misguided one? Do such beliefs exist? If not, does that mean that knowledge is impossible? Or is there some other way to justify our beliefs?
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The only thing that really needs no justification is the belief that “I think therefore I am.” There’s no way to imagine thinking without doing that action. There has to be something that exists in order to have the faculty of a mind. If one uses the process methodic doubt, one cannot doubt that they are thinking. It would be absurd. The one thing about the being we call self that can be doubted is our physical existence in the world around us. What one perceives is true to himself or herself but not necessarily in its true form or essence. One may perceive a body but that could possibly be due to the sensory or imaginative parts of the mind. Therefore I would conclude that there is only one foundational belief, which is that I exist. Hence, it is impossible to have true knowledge about anything except your mind. It is the only thing that one cannot doubt. For example, in the matrix, everything that one perceives is due to a machine-generated world where machines creates humans for fuel. Everything, even Keanu Reeves bodily perception, in the matrix has been created by the machinery. In the Matrix, Keanu think he has a full head of hair, but he really is a bald man with a port in the back of his skull. Therefore, the only thing that Keanu can recognize as true is his on mental capacity. Essentially one can live in a multiple dimensioned world and never know anything indefinitely except that fact that I think therefore I am.
ReplyDeleteI believe that this search for a set of foundational beliefs is one that is paranoid and unnecessary. What sparked this entire introspective meditation is the simple fact that Descartes made assumptions at one point, and they turned out to be wrong. This happens to everyone, and most people would simply shrug it off, analyze where they were wrong, and then carry on with their life, secure in the belief that their other knowledge still proves to be true. Instead, Descartes decides that ALL of his knowledge might be false, simply because he has made mistakes in the past, and then tries to find beliefs that he cannot ever prove to be false.
ReplyDeleteIn a way, this is a noble endeavor, in that he is truly searching for pure truth. But, I don’t believe that this journey is at all necessary. Sure, there’s always the possibility that we’re actually living in some matrix-esque dystopia where we’re grown in pods for energy. In this case, yes, the knowledge that I believe to have is false. But if this is the case, how is Descartes’ quest going to help us? Let’s assume that this world isn’t the really real world, and all my other knowledge is false. So now, if I ever find myself waking up in the “true” world that I live in, I have these few beliefs that still hold true. Awesome. I still need to learn my knowledge all over again anyways, so all Descartes really did was jump-start my new discovery of knowledge. Now, maybe this world is truly the world in which I live, and I’m not going to suddenly find myself submerged in a pod like a glorified battery. In this case, I would have spent all of my time being skeptical, erasing beliefs that were entirely true, and limited my knowledge to a few “true” truths. Essentially, Descartes has wasted his time, all on the off chance that he wakes up in some new world where his other beliefs do not hold.
I don't think Descartes' quest of a foundation project is necessarily misguided but perhaps ultimately futile in nature. Through movies like the matrix and contemplation, one is fully justified in believing there is potentially a reality that encompasses our own and is the root of reality. A misguided project would imply a search for something that has no possibility of existing and is wholly detached from reality. Analogously string theory which has become commonly accepted as the grail of modern physics. By using an analogy to describe the situation, I believe I can accurately portray Descartes' quest for a foundation of knowledge as equivalent and therefore not misguided - trying to define something by its own merit will often lead us into a circular path and therefore an analogous situation that is self evident should be sufficient to prove Descartes is not misguided. While we have no ability to produce tangible evidence for string theory, the conclusions we derive from it are true and thus physicists are constantly trying to find evidence for string theory. Similarly, while we currently don't have a way to prove reality, we can still search for it as we find the conclusions of a reality existing to be true. Therefore I will argue in this blog post that Descartes' attempts at creating a foundation of knowledge is not misguided but perhaps futile.
ReplyDeleteThere definitely exist axioms of reality. For example the cogito argument that thinking entails existence is self evident and true and Descartes is correct in pointing our that we can establish that we exist to ourselves. However, the cogito argument and mathematics are the only compelling axiomatic arguments that Descartes procured. In my blog post on the relevance of God, I established that even if we buy the axiomatic existence of God, it is still impossible to derive reality from that axiom.
However just because Descartes failed to create a necessary foundation does not mean that the effort is futile. Perhaps we could be living in the matrix and could find such a fact out by some fluke or some keen insight into existence. Just because Descartes failed does not mean that the project itself is an impossibility - rather, we just haven't been able to discern the necessary prerequisites. No matter how impossible an argument seems does not guarantee its impossibility. While I believe the act of searching for existence is futile ultimately, my beliefs do not dictate reality and therefore I believe the project is neither misguided or impossible.
Alternative ways of thinking are not easy to procure in regards to reality because if I were capable of producing such arguments, the nature of reality would be obvious to me. However I will argue that the justifications of our beliefs only matter in the reality we perceive and even if they are ultimately untrue, they are still able to be justified by using our perceptions. Justification only implies we must have conviction in our beliefs and while I acknowledge that reality may be some exterior world that we can't see, I do not lack conviction that the reality I see is the reality I care about. Therefore I can still justify my beliefs to myself because I do not care about some external reality since I perceive justifying myself to such a potential existence is futile. I can say with conviction that the act of murdering another human being (the act of murder being what I perceive to be killing and the human being as someone I perceive to have the traits we use to define a human if we're being technical since it could all be an illusion) is wrong. I can justify this belief to myself and therefore our knowledge is still able to be justified. It's just a matter of what you define as your focus. As long as we define reality to be what we perceive, we can justify our knowledge to ourselves.
[A little elaboration since I hit the character limit]
DeleteAn analogy would be from physics, Newton's description of force (F=ma). When we approach light speed, this "law" falls apart, however for all intents and purposes since we don't ever approach light speed, the law as it stands is perfectly fine and justifiable. Similarly, even if another reality makes our "knowledge" false, it doesn't mean we are unable to justify knowledge, we can still justify to ourselves. The only thing we can't do is cross apply our "knowledge"/knowledge to theoretical realities.
Descartes is partially correct in searching for fundamental beliefs that do not need justification. On one hand, it is entirely reasonable and valuable for one to seek the truth. The only thing to question, however, is if there is one singular truth for all people.
ReplyDeleteA while ago in class, I challenged a proposal that it is impossible to think that 2 + 2 could equal anything other than 4. While this is true for us humans, could it be that in some other alternate universe, 2 + 2 could equal 5? If that's difficult to imagine, suppose I told you to draw a four-dimensional object on a piece of paper. You couldn't do it! Unless you were a five-dimensional being, you would not even know where to begin to accomplish that task. Likewise, who is to say that there are not different laws of mathematics or physics in a different universe? Just because you can not conceive something does not mean it's not possible in some form.
Analogous to that example, each person may have different fundamental values and beliefs true his or her self. Because of this, Descartes found out HIS beliefs. Therefore, is is perfectly reasonable for him to continue to search for such ideas, but he must stop forcing them onto other people who have different ideas. This goes back to the philosophy behind the Matrix. The "fake" Neo lives in a big city while people around him do their own things. However, those people don't actually exist; they are part of the bigger dream-world that Neo is living in. Because of this, everything that occurs in the world isn't actually happening to EVERYONE, but rather just to Neo himself and to the projections of everyone else. Personal ideals and beliefs have the same effect, in that they only pertain to one singular person, and everyone else has different personal values than you do. This means that knowledge is not impossible, but just that what you know might not be the same for everyone else around you. In short: you only know what only you know.
Descartes’s quest is for a foundation of knowledge is in vain, but not entirely. He wishes to create a foundation which more knowledge can be derived from. However, he must ensure the primary foundation is one of truth. When he discusses in Meditation One, he establishes that all of his knowledge is baseless. Thus, he tries to determine what he can really know. Since his senses can deceive him, he disregards many of the sciences, or established ideas of man. He is left with what is most basic, math. However, he realizes that an all-powerful god could control these basic ideas. Therefore, if there is an evil god/genius that is manipulating the world, they could potentially create laws that are untrue. Descartes uses this reasoning to determine that he must not even rely on basic ideas like math, as it could be deceit (which would not help the problem of having a false foundation). After this, he is left with no knowledge. In the second mediation, Descartes discusses how, since his senses can mislead him of everything, he has no knowledge of his environment. This combined with the possibility of an evil god leaves Descartes sure that he has no knowledge. However, the only thing he is sure is that he exists, since nothing could persuade him that he does not exist.
ReplyDeleteWith this setup, Descartes’s quest for knowledge is somewhat misguided. He can never truly attain true knowledge, but this objective of establishing what one knows is beneficial in the fact that he can realize nothing is necessarily real. Because he has established this foundation, he can see that nothing is true or false necessarily. I believe that this is as far as humans can go in terms of formulating a basis for knowledge, as there will always be an if clause somewhere down the line of reasoning. As one gets more complex, the more loopholes they will have. However, this does not mean knowledge is impossible. One can still have knowledge, without knowing they have knowledge. Even if they are uncertain they still might be right. This does of course mean it is impossible to have complete knowledge, if you don’t know what you know.
I believe that there is one foundational fact, as in one belief that does not need justification, in which every other belief takes its root from. However, I believe that the journey in which to find that fact is unnecessary reason being that I believe finding this fact or belief is or close to an impossible task. By saying this, I also believe that knowledge is not impossible, but it is limited. Since the task of trying to find where everything comes from is relatively impossible, that means it is impossible to have knowledge on everything in life, whether or not it exists. It is still possible to obtain knowledge. For example, many take journeys in which they might make either a minor or major mistake. Most people learn from these mistakes and use this newfound knowledge for their actions later on in life. Another example could be about when people make assumptions. Assumptions can either be true or false, and learning what kind of assumption one has made is another way of a person being able to obtain knowledge. These experiences in life give us most of the knowledge that we obtain today; however, they can only give you so much. Since one learns from experiences, the only way one could gain total knowledge of everything, they would have to experience everything. This, seeming as if an impossible task, gives one only a limited amount of knowledge that he can ultimately gain.
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